


Inevitable Outcomes

by OldToadWoman



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst and Humor, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:26:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/OldToadWoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone's favorite oncologist once again blurs professional boundaries to fulfill the last wish of a dying patient. As James Wilson is caught in a spiral of over-analysis and rationalization, Greg House sulks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable Outcomes

**Author's Note:**

> warning: terminal cancer hankie alert, romantic schmoop, sexual situations, swearing

James Wilson's fundamental flaw as a doctor was his inability to maintain professional boundaries. Time and time again he let himself get personally involved with his patients' lives. He cared about them all, even the unpleasant ones that he didn't like very much. He loved many of them, fell _in love_ with several, secretly lived with one of those for awhile, donated a lobe of his own liver to another—and that was one of the unpleasant ones he didn't like much. If he were to make a list of insanely unprofessional things that he had done with and for patients, Bonnie Day's little request ranked probably only fifth or sixth.

(That list did not include anything involving Gregory House. That was an altogether different list of insanely unprofessional acts and if he combined them, then Bonnie Day didn't even crack the top twenty.)

Bonnie Day was a cheerful yet practical woman just pushing sixty when he first met her but she could have easily passed for much younger. Her hair was platinum white and from a distance she could be mistaken for blonde. She had a twinkle in her eye and purpose in her stride and if asked to explain her youthful appearance many people would have used the word healthy. She still looked healthy when James Wilson confirmed that the lump she'd found in her right breast was cancer. The chemotherapy diminished the twinkle quite a bit, but the cheerful and purposeful aspects of her personality gelled into a fierce determination. She didn't just attend the support meetings and the fundraising events, she _organized_ them. She cheered on other survivors. No one ever doubted that she would beat cancer and win.

She was sixty-one when the cancer came back. A second surgery, even more chemo. She'd been dealing with Dr. Phillip Anderson at that point and she specifically requested Dr. James Wilson's opinion on her case because she remembered him from the first time around. He had always taken time to explain things clearly and even bought lots of brownies at her fund raising bake sale.

James, for his part, was doubly sad when he received the referral. For starters, no one as lovely as Bonnie Day—whose very name was all sunshine and daisies—should die this way. For another, he dreaded being the one to tell her that the cancer had won. Anderson was a skilled doctor, but he'd keep treating his patients right up until they were dead even when there was no hope at all. James was aware of patients who'd had useless surgery well after metastasis had been confirmed, sometimes just days before they died. He'd heard stories of family members making plans for when their loved one "got better" when they should have been making funeral plans. Giving patients hope was one thing, false hope was another.

And now James was going to have to look into the bright eyes of Bonnie Day and tell her that all the fighting and chemo and bake sales had been for naught. She needed to get her affairs in order, let her loved ones know her funeral preferences, get ready to die.

She looked twenty years older than when he'd last seen her. She had a paisley purple scarf tied around her head and she looked tired, but she still smiled and greeted him with a hug. It was a gentle token hug. James had enough experience as an oncologist to know that even with hugs sometimes it is mainly the thought that counts. He knew how to encircle someone in his arms and barely press on their back with his fingertips, to "hug" without straining any of those muscles so abused first by cancer and then by the surgeon's knife.

"I'm dying, yes?" she asked after the pleasantries were exchanged.

James was momentarily taken aback. Dr. Anderson's patients were rarely this well informed. "Yes," he answered. It was so tempting to lie. She deserved the truth.

"The pills that they've got me on now. Are they doing any good at all?"

"Possibly a little."

"More likely none at all?" she asked.

"It's impossible to give absolutes when talking about the human body. They may be slowing the cancer a little. They're not stopping it."

"Good. So if I chuck them in the trash, no real harm done?"

"Side effects?"

"Pretty nasty ones. Yes."

"If they are diminishing your quality of life, I'd recommend discontinuing the medication. I can prescribe other medications to keep you comfortable."

She nodded. "I approve of comfortable."

"You've been reading up on the subject, I take it?"

She nodded again. "I started to suspect that I wasn't getting straight answers, so I began researching on my own. Then I remembered you. You were always my favorite last time," she added with a smile.

There was something about the smile. He almost wondered if she was flirting with him. It happened sometimes. "I promise to be straight with you."

"Good, good."

He started to ask about her current symptoms. Pain? Nausea? Insomnia?

"I should probably be straight with you as well," she said, interrupting him. "I came to you because I wanted to know for sure that I'm really dying. And now that I do, well, I also came to you because I'm worried about Keith."

She proceeded to tell him about her son. He was thirty-five, worked for a big mortgage firm, single, lived alone, no kids, no pets, didn't seem to socialize beyond his coworkers, put in too much overtime.

She wanted to spend more time with Keith now that she knew they didn't have much time left, but more than that she wanted Keith to spend time with people outside the soulless cubicle farm where he worked. He was smart and sensitive and should be, in her opinion, a famous writer by now. He should also be in love.

"I don't want him to be alone after I die," she said. "When you first told me I had cancer, a lifetime ago it seems, it was a wake-up call to appreciate the important things in life, to _do_ the things we always talk about doing someday _now_. I hinted at him then that it would be nice for him to find someone special, settle down, maybe give me grandchildren."

"He wasn't ready?"

"He always changed the subject. And I'm not naïve. I can take hints too. I finally had to ask him flat out to his face if he was gay before he'd admit it."

"Ah."

"It's the modern era. Nothing to be ashamed of. I wouldn't have thought he would feel the needed to hide things from me. But he's still terribly vague about everything. And if I ask him about his day, he just talks about that dreadful mortgage firm. I don't think he gets out much. He's such a lovely young man. He should get out more."

"That's very sweet of you," James said. He was glancing through her chart, mainly to have something to do. It didn't seem she wanted to talk about her case at all and he had little to contribute in the way of family advice.

"And, you know, he _is_ such a nice young man that he really should find another nice young man, don't you think?"

She smiled at him again in that way that was almost but not quite flirting and he finally got it this time.

"Ah."

* * *

"You agreed to go on a blind date with a patient's son?"

Greg had snuck up on him in line in the cafeteria.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." James had no idea how Greg had found out and he wasn't volunteering any information until he did.

"Don't play coy with me. I listened to your voicemail. You're going to screw a _banker_ because his _mommy_ wants you to?"

"Loan officer."

"Oh, well, that makes everything okay then."

"And no one said anything about screwing."

"Except Serena."

"Serena doesn't count."

James didn't even know who Serena was. After the appointment with Bonnie, he and Keith had played phone tag for a few days. The first voicemail had been very hesitant.

"Hi. You don't know me, but my name is Keith Day and my mother seems to think—"

"Ask him to send you a picture," a woman's voice said in the background.

"Shh! Sorry, um, yeah, so you know Mom and—"

"Bear, wolf, or otter?" the woman's voice asked, sounding closer to the phone now.

There were the faint sounds of a scuffle and then Keith's voice whispered, "Serena, I swear to God—"

"At least find out if he's a top or a bottom," Serena insisted.

"Okay," Keith said into the phone in measured tones, "I think what we should do is just pretend this was a wrong number. I'm very sorry to have bothered you."

It was endearing in a way and Keith sounded even more pathetic than he had previously imagined which strengthened his resolve. The guy needed help and there was no harm in one date after all.

"Trust a man's fag hag," Greg said. "Have you decided on top or bottom or are you planning to flip a coin for it?"

"Greg—"

"If Serena thinks it's important to work these details out ahead of time, I don't think you should argue. I see you as an otter, by the way."

"I don't even know what that means."

They got to the cashier and, as usual, Greg had accidentally left his wallet somewhere else. As usual, James found it easier to pay Greg's bill than to argue.

He found an empty table and Greg sat down across from him. More personal comments followed. Probing questions. Innuendos. Bad puns.

In a strange way, it was Greg who talked him into it. He hadn't really been prepared to do anything but have a talk with the man as a friend. He'd agreed to "meet with" possibly even "have dinner with" Bonnie's son. He hadn't thought of it as a date, until Greg kept calling it that, kept reminding him that surely Keith thought it was a date and that there were bound to be _expectations_ that he would have to deal with.

Had it not been for Greg, James would have gone into the dinner determined to keep things platonic, to try and ease Keith out of his shell strictly in the role of confidante and supporter. And at the first hint that it was an actual date, he would have backpedaled and spluttered and protested that he was _Not Gay At All Not That There's Anything Wrong With That_ and, yeah, _that_ was just _bound_ to give a nebbish loan officer the confidence to come out of his cubicle.

What was he really prepared to do? James approached the question in his typical fashion. _What did Keith need?_ Confidante and supporter, yes, but it sounded like he already had those in Serena. Wasn't it more than likely that what Keith needed would require a more hands-on approach? And what was wrong with that? He would never have become a doctor if he'd been squeamish about the human body.

"Oh, and one more thing that you need to decide ahead of time," Greg said, stealing a french fry as he got up to leave the table. "Spit or swallow?"

James frowned. He already knew the answer to that one: condom. Greg was trying to shock him. He wondered if Greg would be shocked if he knew what he was thinking. "Greg, can you, just once in your life, mind your own business?"

Greg tilted his head to one side and stared at the ceiling as if he were really thinking about it and after due consideration said, "No."

* * *

He and Keith quickly found that texting worked better than phone tag. Keith wasn't allowed to take personal calls during work hours. James was often busy, sometimes unpredictably late. It avoided the risk of being overheard and James not only took extra effort to not let his phone out of his sight lest Greg get a hold of it again, but he also made sure to delete his texts as soon as he'd read them.

It was not guilt, he reassured himself. It was important to have that clear in his head. Keith needed to be reassured that there was nothing at all to feel guilty about. He just didn't need Greg meddling.

Their texts were innocent enough.

"This weekend?" he asked.

"Work o t sat. Church picnic w mom sun. Mon?"

He couldn't quite parse that first bit. Did he mean to say he was working out? Working on? At any rate, he seemed busy.

James replied, "Late hospital meeting Monday plus early Tues appt. T? W? Th?"

He had second thoughts as soon as he hit send on that one. That was perhaps too forward of him. To decline a Monday dinner and specifically mention that he had to be up early on Tuesday, that implied more than just dinner, didn't it?

He'd fretted through two back-to-back appointments, before he had a chance to check his messages to read the reply.

Keith: "Wed good. Ur place? Mine?"

He didn't even have to think about that before he replied. "Yours. Address? Time?" If they met at his place, he could practically guarantee that Greg would "just stop by" at an inopportune moment.

Keith texted him the address and suggested seven o'clock and then added, "I ll make chkn florntin."

James was a bit surprised at that last part. For some reason, he'd expected to pick Keith up and take him out to dinner. But Keith was offering to cook. Okay, that was actually simpler. No embarrassment worrying if their conversation was overheard. They could talk freely. And if things seemed to be moving in that direction, well, it would be a lot easier to get personal. That was a good thing, not at all something to panic over.

He was shaking slightly and had to go back repeatedly to correct typos. "Looking forward to it. See you then."

When he left the hospital after work the day before the big date, he found himself slinking quickly to the car, knowing Greg was tied up in the middle of a medical emergency with his team, yet not quite trusting that they were all accounted for. He checked his rear view mirror a couple of times as if it were rational to expect to be followed. He satisfied himself that no one knew where he was going before he even turned his car in the direction of the adult bookstore.

He called it an adult bookstore in his mind, but it wasn't really a bookstore at all. It featured pornographic DVDs and sex toys. He knew of it thanks to Greg, had even been inside it with him more than once because Greg "needed to grab something quick" and waiting in the car in front of an adult store was even more embarrassing than going inside. At least the people who saw you inside were already inside themselves.

He needed condoms and lube, which he could have gotten at the drugstore, but he also thought a cock ring would be a good idea. Because if he was seriously considering doing this thing, he needed to make sure he could actually do it. Failure was not an option. He was going to make sure Keith had a wonderful time. He wasn't going to risk leaving the poor man with an inferiority complex.

And James was pretty confident that he would have no difficulty achieving an erection. As long as alcohol was not a factor, he had good—that is to say, frequently embarrassing—reflexes as far as that went. It was staying motivated until completion that could prove tricky. One cock ring, problem solved. He'd even worked out how he was going to explain it to Keith, since just coming out and saying "I'm worried that having sex with you might turn me off," seemed a bit rude. He was going to say he was worried about the condom slipping if they got too frisky. If absolutely necessary, he'd hint at a performance issue.

As usual, the store put him on edge. It was too bright. If you were going to buy porno and dildos, you'd expect it to be dimly-lit with the hardcore stuff tucked discretely behind a curtain in the back room. "This entire place would be in the back room if they did that," Greg had once told him. He was right of course. It was just that it always reminded him of a grocery store or a K-Mart with rows of fluorescent lights illuminating things James had difficulty looking at without blushing.

Mannequins modeled slinky and impractical outfits. Cardboard cutouts of well-oiled young actresses in lingerie beckoned near the DVD racks. There was a whole row of bawdy joke items, mainly intended to get laughs at bachelor and bachelorette parties.

James stopped near the entrance, trying to get his bearings. He always felt terribly disoriented in here and usually just followed Greg and avoided eye contact with the other patrons and staff as much as possible. There was a bulletin board near the door that he'd never paid attention to before. He read it now, wondering vaguely if people ever put up notices for free kittens or second-hand guitars here. How would you respond if they did?

"Hi, I saw your flier at the porno shop and was wondering if you still have that washer and dryer for sale?"

There were some legitimate-looking fliers for rock bands advertising gigs in the neighborhood, a couple of questionable ones for massage parlors, a few strip clubs had put up their business cards. There was one rather sad little notice looking for nude models for "a real photographer" and "real" had been underlined in the hopes that it added a touch of authenticity. A couple of dancers were offering their services, one of which emphasized "dancing only, no weirdos, no touching."

The other dancer was named "George" with quotation marks and all. James wondered if it was a case of overenthusiastic punctuation or if George was saying, "Look, you don't need to know my real name." His flier was roughly the same quality of the average "Lost Dog" flier, entirely hand lettered with his picture photocopied into the corner. You could make out his basic build, but his face was lost in shadows, perhaps on purpose. He was a "Skilled Dancer. Athletic." He also provided his own music and costumes provided that what you wanted was "Cop. Fireman. Caveman. Doctor."

(James was strangely uncomfortable with that last one.)

He listed a flat fee for bachelorette parties and added, "Special Requests Negotiable." Every one of the tear-off strips at the bottom had been claimed, but his phone number and email address were still listed near the jagged bottom of the page. In very small print below them, looking a bit like a joke, but seemingly printed by the same hand as the rest of the flier were the words "Weirdos Extra."

James decided that the bulletin board wasn't a particularly respectable place to loiter and wandered down an aisle filled with strange devices. An employee saw him looking confused and offered, "Can I help you find anything?" He shook his head no automatically, thought about it and almost said something, then realized that he couldn't think of a polite name for cock ring, and shook his head again.

He finally found what he was looking for and conveniently in the same aisle with the condoms. The most difficult decision turned out to be lubrication. He probably spent half an hour comparing boxes and tubes, reading labels, trying to sort out the difference between the body oils with fine print warning "external use only" and the personal lubricants with fine print warning "do not ingest" and the flavored "100% Safe!" strawberry oil with fine print warning "may cause rashes and burning." He picked up a tube of something called Pirate Passion Oil, which the label assured him was safe and multi-purpose, useful as a personal lubricant, and as a bonus was supposed to taste like coconut. A couple were on the label dressed as pirates—dressed as pirates that is if lady pirates wore bikinis and male pirates wore strategically-placed lady pirates. They were both wearing eye patches so they had the basic theme. The tiny print on this one suggested dabbing some of the oil on twenty-four hours in advance to make sure you weren't allergic, which made James glad he hadn't tried to grab this stuff on the way on the night of their date. He also bought a basic non-pirate tube of KY just in case.

It does not matter where you shop, any clerk ringing up your condom purchase is psychic. They know. When you're sixteen and feeling optimistic about your first big date, the clerk knows that you're wasting your time and that you'll still have these same condoms hidden in your sock drawer right up until a week before next year's prom when your mother will find them and throw them out in hysterics.

When you're seventeen and replacing the condoms your mother just threw out, the clerk knows your mother and the girl you plan to take to prom and her mother and basically every mother in the world and is sending you _very disapproving thoughts, young man_. When you're nearly twenty-one and buying condoms and wine coolers for some post-study relaxing, the clerk won't give a rip at all about the condoms, _but nice one trying to slip the wine coolers past me, buddy, now go put them back_.

When you're a married man and buying condoms because they're cheaper than kids, the clerks are all so bored they never even glance at you as they ring up your purchase. When you're a thrice-divorced man feeling optimistic about an Internet date, the clerk knows that your condoms always end up unused in the sock drawer and wonders why you haven't figured this out yet. And when you are buying condoms in anxious anticipation of what could potentially be your first gay escapade, well...if he'd gone to the drug store, he knew the clerk would know and probably disapprove, which in addition to wanting the cock ring, was one of the reasons he had chosen to buy his supplies here. You couldn't work at a store like this and be judgmental about the clientele.

At the counter, there were three stacks of postcard-size glossy prints of couples in the throes of ecstasy. Each was angled so that you couldn't see anything graphic, but the titillation aspect of having the goods just barely out of view was impressive. The cards had all the contact information for the store and James already knew before he checked out that the clerk would put one of them inside his otherwise unmarked bag.

There were three different stacks because there were three different cards and it was apparently up to the clerk to guess which one would most likely appeal to any given customer. One card featured two women, another two men, and the third a heterosexual couple. The clerk nearly always gave Greg the card with two women on it. With barely a glance at James, the clerk grabbed the card with two men and put it in the bag.

"Have a good evening, sir."

Not judgmental, but still psychic.

* * *

The day of the date was nerve-wracking. He not only had to deal with his own butterflies, but then there was Greg. He had hoped Greg had forgotten about Keith by now, but Greg had an unerring way of knowing when James didn't want him to know something. Greg might as well be psychic.

They had little actual contact that day. James spent as much time as possible with patients and Greg spent as much time as possible hiding from a process server who'd been looking for him since 8AM.

"Why do you smell like coconut?" Greg asked the one time he'd managed to catch up to James in the hall.

"A different lotion. You like it?" He tried to sound nonchalant, but Greg squinted at him suspiciously. He'd put some of the Pirate Passion Oil behind his right ear to test for allergies. It was a sensitive enough area that he thought he'd likely get a rash if he were at all prone, but not the kind of spot that would rub and be miserable. So far so good, although he was still a bit hesitant. He was fine, but what if Keith were allergic? And also he apparently smelled like coconut, which was hard to explain.

Greg leaned in and sniffed again. His nose actually touched his hair. "Greg, this is the sort of thing that normally goes without saying in the workplace, but please don't sniff me."

"I know that smell," Greg said suspiciously. His eyes were unfocused, the way they got when he was thinking about something a little too hard. And then his eyes darted to the end of the hallway and he literally hid behind James for a moment.

James turned and saw a man in an ill-fitting gray suit, holding a briefcase in one hand and a large envelope prominently in the other.

"Tell him I went _that_ way," Greg whispered before limping off quickly in another direction.

It was a beautiful stroke of timing. He'd just had his last patient of the day and could head out now while Greg was distracted. The man in the gray suit approached, looking confused and a bit forlorn.

"He went that way," James said, pointing in the direction that Greg had in fact gone.

James grew increasingly nervous as seven o'clock approached. He wanted to go home and shower and change, but he didn't want to risk Greg cornering him at just the wrong moment, so the safest choice seemed to be to find a coffee shop near Keith's place and wait there. Adding caffeine to the mix had not been his best idea, but he just kept reassuring himself that he'd planned for everything. He just needed to stop worrying and focus on what he could do to help Keith. When he knocked on the door, he was feeling fairly confident that whatever happened, he was going to accomplish something worthwhile. He owed this to Bonnie.

As it happened, there was one thing he had not planned on at all.

Keith Day was six foot four, drop-dead gorgeous, and thought that his mother arranging a pity-date for him was the funniest damn thing he'd heard of in ages.

He was still laughing about it an hour later when he turned off the stove. "Hand me that lid, will you?" He put the lid on the pan and turned back to James. "All this time, I thought I was doing her a favor, being discreet. I mean, who talks to their mother about sex, right? And so she's got me pegged as a neurotic virgin?"

James shrugged. "She thinks you work too much."

"Well, that much is true. But the OT is nice for the paycheck."

"OT?"

"Overtime. We get time and a half for overtime."

"Ah." James always felt awkward talking about money. He didn't think of himself as rich, maybe if there hadn't been three divorces to pay for, but certainly not rich now, but he also knew that he wasn't poor, had never really had to scrape by the way some people had, the way some people still did and it embarrassed him a little. "She just wants to know that you're getting out and meeting people."

It was Keith's turn to shrug. "I guess it is mainly just work and hanging out with the same friends. Meeting new people is nice." He smiled at James then and playfully bumped into him as he leaned up against the kitchen counter. "It was sweet of her to think of it. It was sweet of you to agree to dinner."

James thought he might have blushed a little then. "I—I—" There just wasn't a good explanation for how he'd ended up here.

"You were doing a favor for a little old lady by agreeing to a pity date with her son," Keith summarized. "Just admit it was sweet."

"Okay, I admit it. I'm a sweet guy."

"You smell sweet, too," he said, leaning in and sniffing at James neck much like Greg had earlier in the day. "Coconut?"

"Um, yeah. That's a funny story. You see—"

And then Keith licked behind his ear and he wasn't quite sure how to finish that funny story. _You see, your mother mistakenly thought I was gay and I thought you were a sad little nerd who needed to get laid so rather than correct her, I agreed to educate you in the ways of love and that involved body oil for some reason_ and, yeah, that just wasn't going to cut it.

"Um." His brain provided him with absolutely nothing else.

"Pirate Passion?" Keith asked.

James laughed nervously. "Yeah. I, uh, stopped at Lola's yesterday. It said you should test it to make sure you're not allergic."

"So, I guess you're not allergic then."

"No. Lucky me." He was starting to babble now.

"Me neither," Keith said, kissing him and running his tongue across his lips. "The food will stay warm for quite a bit," he added. "We can come back to it later."

"Um," James repeated.

"If you're not ready for the bedroom yet," Keith added, "we can just sit on the couch."

"Okay."

They went to the couch, but they never really sat. They were nearly instantly horizontal and Keith's hands were sort of everywhere and James didn't exactly keep his hands to himself either, because Keith was fantastically well-built in a way you couldn't help but appreciate aesthetically speaking. Those good/embarrassing reflexes of his were working in tip-top shape and, as things were starting to get athletic, James nearly fell off the couch and gasped, "Maybe we should—"

Keith nodded and tugged him toward the bedroom. James paused and motioned toward his jacket which held the unmarked bag from Lola's. He was able to pick up the jacket, but fumbled as he tried to check the pockets. He thought for a moment that he must have lost the bag somewhere and then guessed he must have just checked the same pocket twice as Keith easily retrieved it on his first attempt.

"Looking for this?" he asked, holding up the bag. James nodded and was unaccountably self-conscious when Keith looked inside it. Keith smiled and led the way to the bedroom.

"The food—" James began.

"It's fine. It will still be warm when we're done," Keith reassured him.

The food was cold by the time they got back to the kitchen, but that was mainly because they'd both fallen asleep.

To hear Greg talk about it, the question of "top" versus "bottom" was about power, control, manliness, who was going to be "the girl." James finally settled the question in his own mind by basing it on practicality. Which of them had the most experience and was least likely to do any injury poking about in uncharted territory? If Keith, whom at the time he still imagined to be a virginal cubicle denizen, had little to no practical experience, than James would claim superior anatomical knowledge based on his medical credentials and suggest that he, James, take the lead. If Keith were a bit more experienced than Bonnie believed, then James was willing to let him be the driving force, as it were, in the bedroom. James didn't feel particularly prideful about his role. The main thing was that neither of them got hurt and that, with luck and a little effort, both of them had a good time.

There are a great number of myths involving promiscuity-related injuries. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who was on duty in the Emergency Room when some flaming queen (a celebrity in many versions) came in suffering from some embarrassing perversion gone wrong. But what actually happened, the first-hand accounts that hadn't gone through the urban legend chain of a-friend-of-a-friend-told-my-cousin was that sexual injuries either came down to brutality (something James wasn't concerned about in this case) or bumbling inexperience (which he was).

It was not the promiscuous celebrity of urban legend who was most likely to end up needing medical attention; it was the devoutly-religious virgin bride who'd douched herself raw in anticipation of an unclean act. It wasn't the oversexed homosexual who misused household objects; it was the desperately lonely guy fantasizing about building a robot girlfriend who looked at the vacuum cleaner and got ideas.

So before they even met, James had decided that if Keith had more experience, it only made sense to let him be on top. Keith had a lot more experience as it happened. And so, when Keith asked if he had a preference, he'd answered, "I think, perhaps, this first time, that you should, maybe—"

It was not the best sex of his life, it would have been melodramatic as well as inaccurate, to call it that. The best sex was honeymoon sex, which by his reckoning started with the engagement and lasted until the third or fourth big fight; the best sex was making love, actual love, well beyond the physical expression of it. He didn't love Keith Day but that was the only thing that precluded the classification of best sex ever because, lack of emotional attachment notwithstanding, that had been pretty damned awesome.

He was okay with it too. His heart was beating a little too fast. He'd been too self-conscious to just walk into the kitchen naked as Keith had done, but other than that he was feeling pretty comfortable in his skin. Keith put the food in the microwave to re-heat. He teased James lightly about his modesty, but then went back to pull on clothing since he didn't want to make things awkward. James respected him a lot for that. He was used to people—that is, Greg—trying to embarrass him at any opportunity.

He glanced at the kitchen clock, intending to calculate how many hours left until he had to be back at work. It wasn't nearly as late as he'd expected. His sleep had been deep. He had awoken with the surreal feeling that a lifetime had passed while he slept. It wasn't even quite midnight yet. Instead of counting forward how many hours until work, he found himself counting backwards. How many hours had he known Keith before they'd fallen into bed? He'd known Bonnie for a couple of years and she'd mentioned Keith in passing a few times before their last appointment. He'd been talking and texting with Keith for a couple of weeks. But from the first face-to-face meeting until they were having sex? Just a couple of hours?

"You okay?" Keith asked.

He nodded. "I'm feeling a little guilty, I think." It seemed safe to say it now. Keith was not going to burst into tears and barricade himself in the closet. "I don't know why. I just, I don't normally move this fast."

"Regrets?"

"No. No, none. This was—" Words failed him as Keith slipped his arms around him and kissed his neck. "You were amazing."

"You're not feeling guilty because there's someone else, are you?" Keith asked. "I should have asked first and not just assumed. For the record, I don't normally move this fast either."

"No, no one else."

"Can I ask you a question then?"

"Sure." James was feeling at peace again. He was having a little trouble putting a label on what had happened tonight, but he recognized it as a mild neurosis of his own. He liked labeling things, but sometimes human behavior could not—did not need to be—neatly pigeonholed that way. He and Keith had had sex. It was good. He was okay with that and he wasn't even that worried about what Greg would say when he found out. Two consenting adults giving each other pleasure and it was all perfectly okay.

"Who's Greg?" Keith asked.

"What?" That had come completely out of left field.

"You know you called me Greg a couple of times, right?"

"No! No, no. I. What? No."

"It's not that common of a name. Offhand, all I can think of is Greg Kinnear—cute enough, I'll grant you—or Greg Brady—which would be a little weird to tell you the truth—or there's a real Greg in your life."

"No. No. No, no, no. No."

"You don't know anyone named Greg?"

"Not know as such."

"Secret crush?"

"No!" James started to panic. He had to get this under control. "Keith," he said as calmly as he could manage. "If you ever meet Greg and there is an unfortunately high probability that you will, please, never tell him about this."

"You don't want Greg to know we had sex." Something in him had changed. Keith was distant now. Cold.

"No. I don't care if Greg knows we had sex. I'm not ashamed of what we did here. You just, please, you can't ever tell him that I, that I, said—please, you can't ever tell him."

"Oh." Keith smiled and the coldness melted. He slipped his arms back around James and hugged him again. "I get it. Secret _straight_ crush. Your secret is safe with me. Safe as houses."

That was not, under the circumstances, a particularly reassuring phrase.

* * *

The next day at work was tense. James spent the day waiting for Greg to pounce from out of nowhere and pull his magic mind-reading act. By midday, he had convinced himself that Keith was wrong. He had misheard. James had grunted something that Keith had mistakenly thought sounded like "Greg". It was just a bizarre coincidence. Perhaps his mind _had_ wandered a bit. He might have thought about Greg for a fleeting moment, but only so far as wondering what Greg would make of the situation. He most certainly did not, as Keith had assumed, imagine having sex with Greg at all. Imagining sex with Greg was the furthest thing possible from his mind. Besides, it was impossible. Greg's leg never could have supported his weight in that position.

He skipped lunch. His stomach was unsettled for one and it was the most likely place to run into Greg for another. Late in the afternoon, Dr. Foreman mentioned that Dr. House was working out of the morgue because apparently the man in the gray suit was squeamish and wouldn't go near the place. He decided he could slip out of his office for a sandwich and a coffee then. Unfortunately, Greg's free food radar was tripped and he chose that moment to slip out of hiding.

"So, you screwed the banker yet?" Greg asked, taking half of his sandwich without asking. Greg froze mid-bite and blinked at him. "Wait, the banker screwed _you?_ "

"How do you _do_ that?" James had been absolutely sure he'd kept his face completely neutral. Hell, he'd rehearsed it in front of a mirror. He was _sure_ that his face hadn't flickered a millimeter.

Greg stared at him and then dropped the sandwich back onto the plate.

"You actually...? You said you were just going to _talk_ to him! What happened to talking?"

"You were the one who said I better be prepared to follow through."

"When did you start listening to _me?_ " Greg looked horrified now. He hadn't been prepared for that at all. Teasing, yes. More dreadful puns, yes. Possibly a public announcement. _Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Dr. Wilson got laid last night. Let's give him a round of applause._ But he hadn't expected anything like actual shock.

"I cannot believe that you of all people," James said, feeling slightly betrayed, " _you_ , have the audacity to—Oh, forget it." He grabbed his sandwich and coffee and headed back to his office.

Greg followed. He could limp surprisingly quickly when he was really determined. "Wilson, wait."

James didn't slow at all. Luck and the man in the gray suit were again on his side. The dreaded process server rounded a corner ahead and James caught his eye and jerked his head back over his shoulder in Greg's direction. The man brightened at the sight of his quarry, but Greg quickly switched directions and slipped between the elevator doors just as they were closing.

The gray man visibly drooped. James felt sorry for him. He wasn't getting paid nearly enough for this job. He would have given him a thumbs up if he'd had a free hand, but he settled for calling cheerily, "You almost had him that time! You're doing a great job!" The man seemed to take heart and stabbed at the elevator button with renewed determination.

His pocket buzzed at him to let him know he had a text message. Keith was nearly the only one who ever texted him. He awkwardly juggled the coffee and sandwich so he could fish out his phone to check. Keith. One word. "Again?"

James smiled, pocketed the phone, and hurried back to his office where he could compose a reply.

* * *

He was determined to be more restrained this time. Their second date in two days shouldn't end with microwaved leftovers. He'd also feel just a little bit better about himself if they actually _talked_ and got to know each other before they ended up rolling around naked.

His resolve gave way the moment he walked in the door. Keith was walking sex. Their hello kiss evolved into foreplay before he could even get the door fully closed behind him and a few more minutes of that and he was genuinely afraid he couldn't get naked fast enough. He asked Keith for "tops" this time, which in actual practice was top and bottom and side as they fumbled for the best leverage. He was possibly overexcited and finished ridiculously soon. Keith was still raring to go so he got his turn after all.

Keith had some kind of magic touch, because James—who normally had a _much_ longer recovery time—was ready for more by the time Keith was done. He imagined them going on like that forever, like a delightfully obscene perpetual motion machine, arousing each other in turns, but by the time James was done they were both wiped out. They slept so soundly that they never had dinner at all that night, microwaved or otherwise.

* * *

Thursday morning the man in the gray suit finally caught up with Greg. His own patient was in surgery at the time, but Greg had feigned the need to consult on the perplexing case of Edna Fleschman who had a troubling case of the chills compounding seasonal influenza. (Edna Fleschman was ninety-seven years old and the most perplexing aspect of her recent bout with the flu was why wasn't she dead yet.) Edna's great-granddaughter already had her out of bed and, with Edna bundled in multiple layers of fluffy sweaters, she was pushing her wheelchair through the hospital garden for a bit of air when Dr. Gregory House suddenly joined them and began lecturing sternly about deadly influenza outbreaks throughout history.

He was possibly operating under the mistaken belief that a white lab coat offered an acceptable disguise. The man in the gray suit, of course, did not know Greg well enough to know this was unusual. Hence, disguising himself as a doctor did not turn out to be one of Greg's better ideas.

As the granddaughter's official complaint to Dr. Cuddy (copies available from Dr. Chase upon request) reported it, they had turned down the little brick footpath near the roses when the man in the gray suit stepped out and blocked their path.

"Dr. Gregory House?" he asked, holding up the large envelope he'd been clutching for the past two days.

Edna had answered for him, "Oh, yes, this is Dr. House."

The man in the gray suit reached over her wheelchair and physically placed the paper in Greg's hand. He then popped open his briefcase to reveal the built-in speakers and music player within and placed it on the ground. And hence to the tune of "Patricia the Stripper", the man in the gray suit became the man formerly in the gray suit.

* * *

"You hired a strip-o-gram?!"

James glanced up from his desk. Greg was still waving around the piece of paper that read in familiar hand-printed letters, "You Just Got Served." He smiled. It was nice when things worked out the way they were supposed to.

"Edna Fleschman nearly had a stroke. You almost killed an innocent old lady. Are you proud of yourself?"

"Edna Fleschman asked for two encores. I had to pay George extra." He had tipped him extra on top of that as well. In all fairness, they were undeniably in "Weirdos Extra" territory even before Greg had taken to hiding in the morgue.

* * *

James was heading into a meeting with Dr. Cuddy and Mrs. Fleschman's great-granddaughter just an hour later when Keith called. It was unexpected and he regretted having to send the call to voicemail, but there wasn't time to answer it and Cuddy was already glaring at him. He made a mental note to call him as soon as the meeting was over. He should be warned. With Greg no longer distracted, it was only a matter of time until—

The great-granddaughter huffed at him when his phone buzzed with a text message. Cuddy tried to look disapprovingly at him, but she realized that sometimes doctors had genuine emergencies.

"Ur x b batshit," it read.

Apparently, _only a matter of time_ translated to _damn near instantly_ when Greg was really determined to be an ass.

He smiled apologetically at them both and pocketed the phone. It buzzed again almost immediately.

"U hv 2min b4 I call police."

 _Oh, holy God!_ "I'm sorry. This is really an emergency." He pleaded with Cuddy with his eyes. "A _serious_ emergency," he repeated. He suspected that she knew that that meant Code House Stat, but she nodded and let him go.

He frantically called Keith. "He's there _now?_ " he asked as soon as Keith answered. "I'll be right there. What's the address? I'm on my way. Twenty minutes. I'm _so_ sorry."

* * *

He violated a few traffic laws along the way and made it to Keith's workplace in just under fifteen, but he lost the extra minutes inside the building trying to find Keith. It was like the final scene in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ if it had been built from cubicles instead of packing crates.

The first person he'd stopped for directions had wanted to _explain_ their organizational system rather than just point. The cubicles were divided into pods, which were sort of like teams only not quite. Someone else shoved a birthday card in his hand to sign. He tried to explain that he didn't work here, but no one was listening and he finally handed over a five dollar bill for Melinda's baby shower anyway. The pods were arranged for "morale maximization" so that like-minded employees could be grouped together and, as far as James could tell, pitted against each other in thinly-disguised warfare.

He was currently under assault from Perky Pod with occasional side shots from Grandmothers Who Want To Show You Baby Pictures Pod. A sign-up sheet for a company volleyball tournament also listed Princess Pod, Pommy Pod, and Pea Pod. He needed to find Keith, but was momentarily distracted. "Is Pommy Pod for cheerleaders?"

"Pomeranian owners," the woman with the sign-up sheet said. She had daisies woven into her pigtails. She was also at least fifty. "They're a little odd."

"Pea Pod?"

"Vegans."

"Those Before Whom Others Will Tremble In Terror Pod?"

"Klingons. They're harmless. Try not to laugh at them though. They get sulky. Steer clear of Party Pod though. _Those_ guys are creepy."

"Look, I'm just trying to find Keith Day."

"Oh." There was a notable decrease in interest in him from Perky Pod. The woman with the sign-up sheet waved him into the maze of cubicles. "Down the aisle, turn left at Dragon Pod, follow that aisle to Jersey Shore Pod, another left, kitty-corner from Paisley Pod."

"And I'm looking for?"

"Pride Pod."

"Of course."

He took a wrong turn at Jersey Shore Pod, but Zombie Pod was very helpful and got him pointed back in the right direction. He spotted Dr. Chase and Dr. Hadley in the aisle ahead and quickened his pace.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"House lied to us and said it involved a case," Dr. Hadley said.

Chase seemed to be acquiring a layer of sticky notes and was looking wary.

He hesitantly leaned in to peer into Keith's cubicle. Keith had curled up on his chair with his knees just under his chin to allow space for Greg House and another man to fit in what was clearly designed to be a cubicle for one. The other man was nearly exactly how James had originally imagined Keith would be. He was scrawny and nervous and distinctly effeminate in both build and posture. He had a large 3-ring binder open in his hands and was lecturing Greg from it like a holy book.

"'Language of a sexist, racist, or otherwise hateful nature is strictly prohibited at all times.'"

"I don't work here," Greg insisted.

"'Employees expressing homophobia should be referred to sensitivity training.'"

"I'm _not_ an employee."

"'Fostering of a hostile work environment will not be tolerated.'"

"Intolerance is intolerable?" Greg asked.

"House, for the love of—" James spluttered. "What are you doing here?"

Greg brightened when he saw James. He was clearly bored of the lectures from the employee handbook. "Ah, Jimmy. This is the new squeeze then, is it?" he asked, pointing at Keith.

"Dr. House, my personal life is not your business."

Greg looked genuinely confused. "Of course it is. You're my best friend. Meddling in your personal life is what I _do_."

Several people were leaning into the aisles to try and get a view of the commotion. Two people were prairie-dogging over the cubicle walls and, on the far side opposite the entrance way, someone was holding up an iPhone like a periscope.

"House, this is Keith's job," James hissed. "You have no business being _here_."

"Why are _we_ here?" Dr. Chase asked, peeling another sticky-note off his shoulder.

" _You_ ," Greg said, "are a decoy. How many phone numbers have you collected so far?"

"Seven and two email addresses and a MySpace page."

"Someone still uses MySpace?"

"House!" James shouted.

"What?"

"Seriously? How do you think any of this is okay?"

"You do _not_ get to change teams halfway through the game," Greg said. "It's not how it works. I saw you through three divorces and numerous other failed relationships with women and in all those years, you never so much as even once _hinted_ that you would even _consider_ switching teams."

An index finger rose up over the cubicle next to the iPhone. "I have a question."

"Not now, Darren," Keith said.

"Thirteen, you're our expert," Greg said. "Tell him."

Dr. Hadley looked bored. She sighed and rolled her eyes at James. "Speaking on behalf of all bisexuals everywhere," she said, "I must inform you that it's against the rules to go gay after the age of thirty. Happy now?"

"A little more sincerity would have been appreciated, but that's the gist of it."

"And what do you actually think?" James asked her.

"Oh," she said with a smirk, "House is totally jealous that you went gay with someone else after he'd already called dibs."

"You and Chase can go wait in the car now, thank you," Greg said.

Dr. Hadley tapped Dr. Chase on the shoulder as she walked away. "Come on, I want to check out Dragon Pod. I think one of those guys had a real sword."

"Greg—" James began, not even realizing his mistake.

"Wait, _that's_ Greg?" Keith asked. The iPhone swiveled down toward Keith's chair. "Oh, sweetie, I thought you had better taste than that." The iPhone swiveled back to Greg and did one full down-up sweep.

"Question," the voice behind the wall said again.

"Not _now_ , Darren."

"Don't _you_ understand how inappropriate this is?" Greg asked. "You don't have sex with someone to comfort him because his mommy is dying."

"My mother is not dying," Keith snapped. "She beat the cancer before, she'll beat it again. She's a survivor."

There was a long gravid silence. Greg shook his head at James. "And you're not even good at it," he said and walked away. The prairie-doggers slunk out of sight. The loiterers in the aisle found other things to do. The man with the employee handbook sniffed once as if he'd won his battle and strode out of the cubicle.

Soon it was just them—James and Keith—and the iPhone.

"Not now, Darren," James said and the iPhone slipped out of sight as well. "I'm so sorry. I thought you knew. She said she told you."

"She's a survivor," Keith repeated. It was so hard for some people to believe that life could not be won on willpower alone. If it were the case, surely Bonnie Day would be invulnerable. It wasn't, James agreed, fair or right. It was tragic and wrong, but it was true.

He knelt down on the floor of the cubicle. Keith had begun to stretch out as the others left and made space for him, but now he began to draw back into his fetal position again.

"Keith, _most_ breast cancer responds well to treatment. In maybe ninety percent of the cases a total cure is achieved, it never comes back. But some cancers don't respond to treatment. The surgery removes the tumor, chemo and radiation may kick it back into hiding, but the cancer is still there. In the case of those rare nasty ones, all the treatment does is prune away the worst of the symptoms. The symptoms keep coming back because the cancer is _still there_."

Keith shook his head, but his eyes were welling up so James knew he'd gotten through. "But she _beat_ it," he whispered. "She _won_."

And then James was crying too. "I'm so sorry."

He stayed with Keith that night. They didn't have sex and they barely talked, but Keith curled up, head on his chest, letting James stroke his hair. It was more important than talking.

* * *

Greg actually avoided him for the next few days. He just occasionally had the decency to know when he should be ashamed of himself. (He _wasn't_ ashamed of himself, but he knew he _should_ be.)

Keith took a week's vacation and went with Bonnie on a road trip to visit a few gal pals. He texted James a few times those first couple of days to let him know that all was well and that if he ever wanted to commit suicide via death by boredom he had several yarn stores that he could recommend.

"Entire store. Just yarn. Mom so happy. Kill me."

The Friday after they returned, Keith insisted that since he'd had a chance to meet Greg, that it was time for James to meet Serena and a few of his other embarrassing friends too. James was hesitant at first. This was turning into a relationship and he hadn't really planned for a relationship. He felt like he was walking through the motions of something fake and it made him feel like a fraud.

"It'll be fun. We're going to make nachos and get drunk and watch porn."

James looked carefully at Keith's eyes. He had to be joking, right? He didn't seem to be joking. "You watch porn with your friends?"

"Not usually, no, but this is a special case."

"Special porn?"

"Yup. It's yours."

"That wasn't me!" James shook his head. "How did you?"

"Greg is a complete ass. You know that, right?"

"I'm going to kill him."

"So, Friday night, nachos, booze, porn, and you need to be there to defend yourself."

"I'm going to kill him," James repeated.

* * *

It was obvious where Bonnie had gotten the impression that Keith didn't socialize beyond work. The skinny guy who'd been quoting the employee manual was Michael. Prairie dogs one and two were Rob and Joey.

"And Andrew sends his apologies," Joey said. "He would have loved to join us eating greasy food and getting tanked watching low-budget porno starring Keith's new _thang_."

Rob made woofing noises at this point.

"And he would have been here," Joey continued, "if, of course, he had absolutely nothing better to do."

"And this," Keith said, "is how our little clique remains so exclusive."

Michael looked at James and shook his head apologetically. "We really don't get out much."

When James asked if this meant if he was going to meet more than Darren's hand, a woman bellowed from the kitchen, "Do not even _mention_ Dagwood! We are trying to have a _pleasant_ evening."

Serena strolled out of the kitchen and engulfed James into a terrifying hug. She was taller than Keith, at least in heels, and had enough personality for three more full-grown people.

"Jimmy! We meet at last!"

"James. The name is James, thank you."

"Really?" Serena glanced knowingly around the room. "A little bird told me that Greg calls you Jimmy."

"And you are not Greg, Serena," Keith said, handing her a clear bottle with something pink in it. "Leave him alone."

"One day, I will hear that full story. In the meantime, let there be porn!"

She waved a DVD over her head while Rob and Joey took up the chant, "Porn! Porn! Porn!"

James had been very uncomfortable with the idea of this evening as it was. He didn't want to admit to Keith that his main fear from the beginning was that watching porn (that no one was going to believe wasn't really him) with a room full of gay men was going to end in some Bacchanalian orgy. He'd told himself that he was perpetuating a stereotype even _thinking_ such a thing. He reminded himself that gay men were not automatically promiscuous or predatory. But Keith had indicated that alcohol would be served and when he expressed his concern— _wasn't it irresponsible to send drunken friends out into the street at the end of the night?_ —he had been "reassured" that it would be fine since everyone was already planning to just stay over for a traditional post-boozing breakfast. This had decidedly _not_ made him feel better.

"Porn! Porn! Porn!"

"Keith, go make popcorn," Serena said, tugging James down onto the couch next to her. "We need popcorn!"

Rob and Joey began alternately chanting "Popcorn" and "Porn".

"So," Serena said with a smile, "I understand that you like to play doctor."

"I _am_ a doctor." James found himself instantly on the defensive, feeling dizzy and bewildered. Serena had brown eyes and legs like chiseled marble. There was nothing about her that could possibly remind him of Greg House, at least physically, but if Greg House _had_ been a tall brown-eyed drag queen with a full set of healthy legs, he couldn't be much more intimidating than Serena.

"If you say so," she said with a leer.

"I'm an oncologist at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital," he said, feeling as though he might as well be talking to himself.

He glanced around and saw Michael sitting on the edge of an ottoman and smiling at him encouragingly.

"What's an oncologist?" Serena asked, wrinkling her nose. "It sounds icky."

"It's very, very icky," Keith agreed, raising his voice above the sound of popcorn kernels pinging inside the microwave. "And we do not want to talk about any of the depressing shit that James does all day at work."

"Nor do we want to talk about any of the depressing shit that we do all day at work," Rob agreed. "We are here for one reason, gentlemen, and that reason is—"

"PORN!" they all shouted.

Keith passed out wine coolers to everyone while Michael put in the DVD. A second trip to the kitchen and he returned and passed out bowls of popcorn.

"Dim the lights!" Serena ordered. "And action!"

They dimmed the lights. Then they turned the lights back on and spent two minutes trying to figure out who was sitting on the remote control. Then they dimmed the lights again and the movie began.

The film was in both costuming and "plot" the perfect backdrop to a Bacchanalian orgy. It was as the guys explained, to his equal parts relief and chagrin, also a perfect feature for _Mystery Science Theater 3000_. There was hooting and laughter. Popcorn was thrown at the TV. Rob and Joey, and occasionally Serena, randomly supplied dialog that was, in all instances, significantly better than the original. In the middle of one of the most graphic sex scenes, Serena hit the pause button leaving a larger than life, and only slightly blurred, penis filling the screen.

"Truth time, boys," she announced. "Keith, is that or is that not our Jimmy?"

And there was more hooting and laughter and this time the popcorn showered down in his direction when Keith answered, "I should be so lucky."

After it was over, they'd not only _listened_ , but actually seemed interested in hearing the story of how James had gotten suckered into helping out a friend with a film school project and how it had gone so horribly wrong.

Serena was laughing so hard, her mascara was running. "I don't care what the excuse is. There is no way you couldn't know how dreadful that was. The edited-in naked bits were the _highlights!_ "

James hesitantly admitted that he'd had his doubts about the production values and script and costumes and, well, basically everything, but the would-be filmmaker kept talking about how you just had to keep picturing how it would look after he'd edited in the music and visual effects.

"And naked bits!" Serena said.

"He kept telling me, 'Faith, James. You have to have faith in _art_.'"

Serena snorted. "Oh, Keith, you better hang on to this one. It's not often you get hold of someone so gullible."

"I don't know," Rob said. "I seem to recall more than one time when Darren was convinced that— _what was it?_ —was it Amway or vacuum cleaners that were going to make us all rich?"

Serena put her hands over her ears. "No. No, Dermot stories! I forbid it!"

"Oh! Remember when Darren was convinced a Russian art dealer would pay him to put on a continuous one-man play inside a giant television set."

Serena stamped her feet. "Stop it," she whined. "No one mentions Derrick. You know the rule. I can't stand it. He's horrid!"

James had only had two wine coolers all night so he didn't think he should feel this confused. "We're doing _Bewitched_ jokes for a reason?" he asked Keith.

Keith clapped his hands for attention. "Enough. No Darren-bashing, any of you. It is not nice. And it is _not_ ," he said, wagging a finger as Serena, "healthy. One of these days, we are all going to chip in and get you a therapist, love. But in the meantime, what's Serena's number one rule?"

"Pictures or it didn't happen?" Joey asked.

"Never wear flats with a miniskirt?" Rob suggested.

"It's not gay as long as she's still wearing a dress?" Michael asked.

"Wait, that story was true?" Joey asked.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!" Serena shouted.

"Ah, screw it, I don't remember what my point was," Keith said. "I'm taking my dreadful actor and going to bed."

"No!" Serena protested. "We have another movie. I thought we needed a double feature so I rented another one."

"I never thought I'd say this," Rob said, "but I think one bad porno might be my max for tonight."

"This one isn't really a porno. I think it's an R. But it has an alien with tentacles and lots of boobs for Michael."

"That is downright thoughtful," Michael said.

"And if James is bi, he might appreciate boobs too. So you can't take James away."

They drank more and ate more nachos and watched topless women get fondled by rubber tentacles and finally James and Keith staggered to bed, leaving the others to fend for themselves.

James crawled into bed, just barely too tipsy to consider initiating anything physical. After a moment's silence, he asked, "What was that about boobs being for Michael?"

"Michael is our token straight guy."

James stared into the dark for a moment attempting to process that. " _Michael_ is straight?" he finally asked.

"Sad, but true. Poor guy is the biggest sissy-boy I've ever met, and I've met a lot and I'm including Serena, but he is, against all expectations, straight. Serena gave it the old college try. A few beers and she can get him revved, but the minute she breaks character it's all over."

"Yeah, I was going to ask about Serena. She's, um, pre-op? Post-op?"

Keith shuddered. " _No_ op! Ugh! No, no, absolutely no—" He made scissor motions in the air and shuddered again. "All factory original parts still installed."

"That seems a little judgmental for a—um."

Keith laughed. "Awfully judgmental for a queer? Yeah. The thing is, gays and trannies and lesbos, we can all pull together for a cause. The right to be yourself without fear, et cetera. We've got that much in common. But the truth is, you stick a bunch of gay men and a bunch of lesbians in the same room for too long and we kind of get on each others' nerves. Deep down we really don't _understand_ what makes the others tick. _Why would anyone want to do that? Ick!_

"And even when you narrow it down just to guys in dresses," he continued. "You still can't fit them all in the same pigeonhole. You've got your straight transvestites and your transsexuals who think of themselves _as_ women and your professional drag queens who are basically putting on a show for the stage and your amateur drag queens who are basically putting on a show for the hell of it. And I still haven't covered all the possibilities.

"So, as one example, there are trannies who hate that they were born with a penis and actually go to great effort to have it surgically removed and then you've got Serena, who's got more fashion sense than common sense, but who loves her penis so much she wants _more_."

"More?" It was probably the recent viewing of the tentacle monster, but James got a very weird visual for that.

"'More, as in, I think she'd like to collect the whole set."

"Ah. Have you—" James hesitated asking the question. "You and Serena? There's history there?"

"You don't need to be jealous," Keith said, patting his arm sleepily. "Ancient history. Serena is high maintenance. And it never meant much. Everyone has _history_ with Serena, except Michael, poor thing. As soon as she breaks character," he repeated with a yawn, "all over."

"I can't imagine Serena breaking character," James said.

"Oh, she's on her game now. Around one or two in the morning though she starts to unravel. And she's like a vampire when the sun comes up. Serena does not _do_ mornings."

James didn't realize at the time that Keith meant that so literally.

He ran his fingers through Keith's hair and felt a sudden pang of guilt about his cat. The poor thing was living on a quick injection and the few handfuls of food he threw down each time he ran home to change, but she had received no attention beyond a single hurried brushing since he and Keith had begun...whatever it was they had begun.

* * *

Rob and Joey had slept in their clothes on the hide-a-bed in the living room. Michael had brought pajamas and curled up under a quilt on the recliner. There was a daybed in Keith's computer room and James figured that's where Serena had disappeared. Fears of an orgy aside, they seemed to have accommodated an apartment full of (mostly) gay men without anyone at all getting laid last night.

Keith's apartment had only one bathroom and that made things awkward in the morning. Michael was already in line when James got up.

Rob called from the living room, "Is he _still_ in there?"

"He's in the shower and he locked the door," Michael said, stomping his foot half in indignation and half in pee-pee dance.

"Oh, for the love of—Keith! We need you to pick the lock on your bathroom door _again!_ "

Keith walked out of the bedroom, dressed in a baggy T-shirt and jeans and stretched lazily. As he passed the bathroom door, he pounded on it twice and shouted, "Stop hogging the bathroom, Darren! If you aren't out in sixty seconds, no french toast for you!"

Keith kissed James on his way to the kitchen and added, "You're going to love my french toast. Everyone loves my french toast."

Joey was already in the kitchen making coffee. James didn't want to even think about coffee until the line for the bathroom eased up. Seconds later, Darren came out of the bathroom and was nearly run over by Michael who was clearly quite desperate at that point.

Darren was toweling off his wet hair as he walked to the kitchen, where he flung himself down onto a barstool and collapsed face down on the bar, towel and all. "What," he moaned, "was that old bat drinking last night?"

Joey set a cup of coffee in front of him and whispered to James, "He does this _every_ time."

"Darren," Keith said flatly, "you had three wine coolers over the course of the entire evening, including the one you spilled on the couch. You had exactly enough alcohol to make a kindergartner slightly tipsy." To James, he added, "Like I said, _not_ healthy." To Darren, he added, "But if you're somehow too hung over for french toast—"

Darren pulled the towel off his head. "Do not put words in my mouth."

Michael returned from the bathroom looking much relieved. "I see you've met Darren."

"Not formally," James said. He was putting it together, but having trouble believing it.

Darren winked at him with a familiar brown, yet non-mascaraed eye. "Morning, Tiger."

Rob came out of the bathroom calling, "Next!" but Joey dashed down the hall before James could even make a move.

"Have you given James Julio's number yet?" Darren asked.

"Julio?" James asked.

Keith was very focused on making breakfast at that moment. "I hadn't actually gotten around to that yet."

"Who is Julio?" James asked again.

"Hairdresser," Darren said. "He could fix that for you."

James squinted at him. "Fix what?"

"Darren," Keith said in a warning tone.

"Just, you know, find you a color that's a little more natural looking."

"This is my natural color," James said.

Darren nodded. "I believe the word you meant there was ' _was_ '. That _was_ your natural color."

"You know, I think a lot of guys look cute with the salt-n-pepper look," Keith said. "You could always just let it go natural."

James was sputtering over a possible response when Joey declared the bathroom was available again.

They all had a chance to empty their bladders and they finished off two pots of coffee (with more resulting bathroom logistics) and Keith's french toast was unbelievably good.

James found himself drifting out of the scene, watching the rest of them as if it were a play that didn't have a role for him. They laughed and talked. Bonnie's cancer was mentioned briefly and Michael, who'd just gotten up to grab another slice, gave Keith a hug. Joey wondered if she'd like it if they all rented a beach house for a weekend. Darren suggested that Serena could take her on a girls day out for facials and pedicures. Rob thought they should make dinner for her at least a couple of nights a week.

James was included in the conversation when they turned to him for an expert opinion. Cancer made you tired, didn't it? Someone with cancer would like it if someone else came in and cooked, wouldn't they?

James said he thought that Bonnie would love it if they came over and cooked dinner, mainly because Bonnie would love to meet Keith's friends. She'd feel so much better as soon as she realized that, despite all the hours in corporate hell, Keith had so many good friends.

James apologized that he couldn't stay (they were going to go check out a new Thai place for lunch), but he had to get back to his own apartment and take care of his cat.

* * *

James returned home to find his cat in Greg's lap. Greg was brushing the cat. It was the sort of thing you made a mental note of just in case it later turned out to be important to know when the delusions first began.

"I won't waste my breath asking how you got in. Can you at least tell me _why?_ "

"I know how guilty you'd feel if anything happened to Mr. Floofybutt. So, being a good friend, I decided to make sure he was okay."

"I've told you before, her name is Sara."

"Whatever."

Sara purred lustily and rubbed against Greg's chest. James sat down at the other end of the couch so he could think about the ramifications of this. Greg's shoes were on the floor by the door where he'd nearly tripped over them coming inside. There were open takeout boxes on the counter with glops of Chinese food spilling out of them. Sara's insulin and a used hypodermic needle were on the coffee table.

"House, did you sleep here last night?"

Greg petted Sara's head and winced when she took a playful nip at his finger. "I just happened to be passing by so I thought I'd stop in and say hi, but it turned out that you weren't in and Sara was lonely." Sara leaned into Greg and purred louder than James had ever heard her purr. "She likes me," Greg added, in case he hadn't noticed. "Does she like Keith?"

James started to answer, bit his lip, and then scowled.

"You haven't even brought Keith home to meet her, have you?" Greg deduced. "You know animals are a keen judge of character. Are you afraid she won't like him?" Sara chewed on Greg's hand again. He smiled stiffly and patted her on the head. "Very playful," he said.

James took a deep breath and leaned back into the couch. "Did you know that some cats are unusually vicious when they're stoned? I'm thinking that rubbing catnip on yourself is a move you're going to regret fairly soon."

Greg sighed and shoved the cat onto the floor. She rebounded almost instantly and he let out a shriek when she landed back in his lap with all five pointy ends ready for business.

It was little moments like this that made being Greg House's friend almost worth it. Almost.

* * *

The week that followed was a nearly unrelenting stream of uncomfortable moments.

He invited Keith to his apartment. Now that Greg knew everything, there was no point even trying to hide from him. His place was significantly closer to the hospital than Keith's, but only slightly farther from Keith's work. Admittedly the traffic from this side would make Keith's commute a bit of a hassle, but the commute for James was currently pretty daunting. And his apartment was nicer anyway. Keith's place was a cozy little apartment certainly and the neighborhood wasn't exactly bad—it was what the real estate agents called full of character. However, James had invested a lot in his condo: time, money, not to mention pissing off Cuddy. He was starting to miss not getting to spend any of his free time there. And there was Sara to think of. He had a cat. Cats were a responsibility. Keith didn't have cats.

Mainly, it turned out, because Keith didn't like cats. He sniffed when they walked in the door. "Yeah, you definitely have a cat." James went to change the litter box while Keith picked cat fur off one of the chairs in a vain attempt to clear a cat-free space to sit.

When James returned from taking out the trash, he found Keith sitting on the wooden bench at the organ. Sara was sitting on an ottoman a few feet away staring him down and flicking her tail.

Keith smiled tightly at him. "You didn't tell me that you played," he said nodding at the organ.

"I, uh, I don't." He'd forgotten about the organ. It was just something that was always there, like the curtains or the paintings on the wall. He hadn't thought about needing to explain it.

Keith squinted at him. "You have an organ, but you don't play? These things are expensive. You don't just buy an organ for your living room because it matches the rug."

"No, it, it, uh, my ex-roommate played it. He, um—" The organ was just not something he could easily explain, even to himself.

"If it was his, why didn't he take it with him when he moved?"

Now that James thought about it, he wasn't sure. "Well, technically," he said, knowing Greg never paid attention to technicalities, "it's mine. I bought it when I was decorating the new place. He lived here then, so—"

"We're talking about Greg again, aren't we?"

"Yes." He'd sort of figured that Greg left the organ because it would have been an expensive pain in the ass to move, but he also suspected that Greg left the organ because it gave him an excuse to visit at random hours.

"He lived with you?"

"Yes."

"And _you_ bought an organ for your new condo because _he_ played?"

"Yes." Come to think of it, he'd bought the new condo because of Greg too. His old apartment just hadn't been big enough for them.

"And you never—"

"Never!"

Keith frowned at him. "Why not?"

"What?"

"Why not? You and he are obviously very—entangled. You work together. You lived together."

James nodded. Entangled was a very good word for what he and Greg were.

"So what went wrong?" Keith asked. "Why isn't he still here?"

James picked up Sara and curled up on the couch with her. "I, uh, got back together with my first wife and I kicked him out."

"Harsh."

"Yeah. Actually it was." He couldn't bring himself to tell Keith the whole story, about how Greg really _was_ certifiable and had lived with him because he needed supervision and emotional support, both of which James had suddenly withdrawn the moment Samantha was back in his life.

"So, can I ask you another question? You kicked Greg to the curb for a woman. Was that because you wanted to be straight?"

He didn't know how to answer that. Even in that moment, he still thought of himself as straight. How could he explain that he was only having sex with Keith because—because he thought Keith needed him and when he found out he really didn't, he was too embarrassed to admit it was all a bizarre misunderstanding. And also the sex happened to be pretty good, which was possibly the definition of gay, so why was it so hard to let go of identifying as straight?

"I don't know," James finally whispered.

"I had a guy like that," Keith said. "The end of college. He was in the theater. The kind of job where people almost expect you to be gay, so Kenny was very—" Keith made jazz hands "— _very_ out there. He was adorable, but I was so determined to fit in, to be normal and average, and back then I still had faith that the executive track actually _led_ somewhere. I dumped the best thing I ever had for the exciting world of mortgages. I regret that, I'll tell you. Do you regret kicking Greg out for your ex-wife?"

"Well, things didn't exactly work out with Sam for very long. She left me."

"But do you regret you never took it to the next level with Greg?"

He shook his head and laughed. "What was it you said about Serena? High maintenance? Greg takes high maintenance to the next level."

Keith nodded his understanding and then glared at the cat. "Check and see that the fuzz-ball didn't leave any surprises in the bed and then let's screw, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

Bonnie showed up at the hospital the next day. She insisted it was just a social call and smiled brightly the entire time. James knew what pain looked like. It was actually easier to see in a beaming face like hers than in the grumpy visage of someone more naturally prone to scowling and complaining.

He wrote her a prescription for a different pain medication and she measured him for a sweater. He tried to tell her she needn't knit him anything and she laughed and said she had gone a bit crazy on her trip and bought too much yarn. "And now I have to use it all up!" she said with a laugh. She did not add, "before I die," but they both understood it.

"I finished Darren's already and if I have enough time after I've knitted everybody one, I think I'm going to make him a second one. Y'know, for 'her'. Is that silly?"

"It's sweet."

He almost let her leave again and at the last moment asked her if she remembered one of Keith's friends. "Someone he went to college with? Kenny?"

Her smile brightened even more and for a moment, he couldn't see the pain. "Oh, he didn't go to college with Keith. They worked in the same bookstore. Kenny did theater, but that's not the sort of thing that keeps the rent paid, so he would end up waiting tables or working in bookstores alongside the college kids though I think he was a few years older than they were. He was so sweet and so funny. You know," she wagged her finger sagely at James, "I _did_ think back then that Keith might be gay because he was so fond of Kenny, but he was very insistent at the time. And who's a mother to argue?"

* * *

James was just hanging up from a cell phone call a few days later when he encountered Greg and an elderly man in the hallway. He was quite sure that Greg deliberately waited until he was within earshot before he asked the patient, "So, tell me, Rabbi Feinman, are you allowed to give a blow job to a man who isn't circumcised or is that considered not Kosher?"

The man in the bathrobe blinked repeatedly before answering. "You know, no one has ever asked me that question before. I'll have to think about."

"It could be important," Greg said. "So if you could get back to me soonish, I'd appreciate it." He patted him on the shoulder and then turned back down the hallway. "Oh, Wilson, I didn't see you there."

"Of course not."

"I have a question for you."

"I'm not answering questions about oral sex at work."

"Well, fortunately, it's not a question about oral sex."

"Good."

"It's about anal sex."

"Not now, Greg."

"I'll pick up a pizza after work and we can talk at your place."

* * *

James was never quite sure how these moments happened, but sometimes, just occasionally, he and Greg spent quiet evenings together where everything about their relationship seemed natural and pleasant. Greg was light and witty. They talked about movies (not always pornographic) and books (usually non-fiction) and the news (not always celebrity gossip) and, tonight, gay sex.

Keith was at his mother's, something James had gently encouraged him to do as often as possible. So there had really been no reason not to take Greg up on his offer of a free pizza.

He made Greg play because he hadn't in awhile and listening to Greg play classic rock on an organ was always entertaining. The fact that this meant Greg's back was to him was a bonus.

"You missed your calling," he said. "You should have been an organist at a roller rink."

"You're changing the subject."

" _He's_ bigger."

"A lot?"

"Enough."

"Enough that it's an issue?"

"Enough that it's obvious. Not enough to give me a complex."

"How is that not weird? I mean the first time at any rate, right? You had to think for just a second there, 'Holy crap, I'm the small one.'"

"I was busy thinking holy crap about a lot of other things that first time."

"He's good?"

"Mm-hm." Sara jumped onto the bench and nudged Greg's elbow causing him to fumble a few notes. "You've turned my cat into a junkie. Congratulations."

"Your cat was a junkie before she met me," Greg said, "And you have a soft spot for junkies, so it all works out."

James nodded and was again glad that Greg had his back to him. He tried to call Sara over, but she decided that the keyboard was more interesting. Greg stubbornly continued to play despite her additions to the harmony, but in the end even Greg House couldn't out stubborn a cat.

He stopped playing and slid around on the bench to face James. "You're the girl every time?"

"No one is 'the girl'. There are no girls present at all, as a matter of fact."

"You know what I mean."

"And he says I'm not an otter, by the way. I am now given to understand that implies considerably more body hair than I have."

"I don't care," Greg said. "Don't change the subject."

"I'm just pointing out that you were wrong."

"It's a subjective term open to interpretation and you'll always be my little otter."

"Thank you?"

"But the question is, are you always the _girl_ otter?

"We take turns."

"What, you have a chart to keep track of whose turn it is?"

He laughed and got up and snatched the cat off the organ. The sound was really quite dreadful. "It's not that formalized."

"How do you decide then? You don't really flip a coin?"

"It's just how the mood of the moment is. It's a matter of who is already in the mood and who's feeling the most energetic and who can stay calm enough for round two."

"Round two?" Greg looked honestly fascinated.

"Yeah, that's mainly what I mean by alternating. If I'm already—" He froze up on the word, but willed himself to continue. He was not going to resort to silly euphemisms and hand gestures now. "—aroused, then there's a good chance I won't make it all the way. So I start." He managed to admit that he had a tendency to premature ejaculation and Greg didn't crack a single joke. He waited a second or two more, just in case, and then continued. "But if I'm not aroused yet, he starts and by the time he's done, I'm, uh, I'm ready."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"You always go two rounds?"

"Usually. We've, uh, we've even made it three rounds a couple of times."

"He's a repeater?"

"No, that's always been me."

Greg was staring at him open mouthed now and he still hadn't cracked a joke. "Wow," he repeated.

James had managed to arouse himself just talking about sex this way, which made him hesitate to continue, but this was possibly the only opportunity he'd have to talk about this with Greg when he wasn't in the mood for pranks and mockery. "The thing is," he said quietly, "I've never had much luck with that before. Usually, when I'm done, even if it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it could have been, I'm down for the count. But, uh, with Keith I've been, um, a bit more energetic than I have for awhile. And, as far as that goes, the premature ejaculation hasn't been this out of control since I was young, like before med school, young. I'm starting to think that, uh, maybe I really am gay."

Greg stared at him for a long time before he finally muttered, "God, you're slow," and turned back to the organ. It was a sixties rock tune that James recognized, but couldn't quite place. Sara tried to squirm out of his grasp to join in, but he held on and forced her to stay on the couch.

When he finally calculated it was safe to release the cat, he went to the kitchen and poured himself another glass of wine. It was the one positive of suffering from alcohol-induced impotence. He could reliably render himself non-embarrassing any time he wasn't on duty or driving.

Perhaps an hour or more passed in contentment. Greg played instrumentals while lecturing him about a recent study he'd read about a new treatment for early stage renal disease that looked promising. This lead to a rant about 'promising' studies that invariably turned out to be scientifically flawed and non-replicable.

And then Keith rushed in without knocking. James felt suddenly guilty as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't, but no matter what Keith thought, Greg was not his ex and they hadn't been doing anything wrong. Keith's eyes took in Greg's presence, but he made no comment about it. Instead he asked, "What does polycystic mean?"

Greg played the first few chords of Mozart's Requiem, but came to his senses and stopped before James could even yell at him.

"It means soon," James said.

"Months?"

James shook his head. "Weeks would be optimistic."

"Days," Greg said firmly. He looked over his shoulder at them. "One week if she's stubborn, but not more."

* * *

Bonnie Day had been determined to finish knitting Dr. James Wilson's sweater before she died, but Darren would only get the one after all.

Kenny apparently infuriated the funeral director by having one of his set designers build the casket on the cheap. Bonnie had insisted on this point herself, so the funeral director couldn't even pull his standard, "Don't you want to show your loved one how much you cared?" speech as he waved the brochure of obscenely-priced alternatives.

There had been what Michael described as "quite the scene" and the funeral director quit. Serena took over, declaring that she was more than qualified as this was practically the same thing as being a wedding planner with perhaps a little less cake. (Joey had pointed out that Serena had never been a wedding planner either and Michael reported that she'd told him to stuff it.) James had done his part by getting a couple of orderlies to transport the body for their standard wages plus gas (and cake). He later learned this was actually the final straw for the funeral director who earned most of his money on the casket and the heavily-inflated transportation fees.

It was, all in all, a lovely funeral. The crowd was a mix of aging church ladies and young gay men, but nearly all of them wore big fluffy sweaters so they bonded nicely as a group. James had imagined that Kenny would be glamorous and thin, his general view of what people who "did theater" would look like. He was not expecting the tall, fairly chubby man of forty with prematurely white hair and beard who hovered protectively at Keith's side throughout the day.

"Never would have pictured Keith's type as polar bear," Rob said to him, and when you said it out loud like that it sounded catty.

"Oh, shut up," Serena said. "They're cute."

"Isn't that Darren's sweater?" Rob asked.

Serena glared at him and Darren's voice answered, "What part of 'shut up' were you unclear on?"

Serena was in black stockings and heels, a tight black skirt a few inches too short to be appropriate for the occasion, and a black pillbox hat with black netting coming off of it. Over it all, she wore a large purple sweater that looked like someone had done something terribly unfortunate to a Muppet. At any other event, it would have been striking to say the least, but at Bonnie Day's funeral, it was only Serena's height that set her apart from a roomful of knitted horrors.

James's sweater was tasteful. It was a pale steel blue, almost gray. Bonnie had been dubious when he picked the yarn from her basket of offerings. "Steel blue and?"

He'd declined another color and she offered more suggestions. "I can do stripes? Or argyle? That's a bit trickier but dramatic. Steel blue and black? Steel blue and dark blue?"

In the end, she knitted him a simple sweater of plain pale steel blue, almost gray, yarn. The pattern changed and tightened ever so slightly at the bottom, a few inches before the ribbing. He thought it was an interesting affect and no one ever told him that it was because her sister Mary had hurriedly finished it after she died.

During the service, almost everyone took a turn at the microphone to share a story about Bonnie. Women he didn't know talked about her volunteer work with the church and her knitting circle. A man who looked a bit like Keith, a cousin or something, told stories of her childhood. Rob just stood up and said he wished his own mother were as full of love and acceptance as Bonnie had been. Serena took the mic and got choked up for a full minute before managing to say, "I just wish I'd known her longer."

And that was when Greg walked in. Serena spotted him first. She and the minister were the only ones facing in that direction when the back doors opened although a few other people turned at the noise. Keith turned at Serena's signal and then he shot James a nasty look.

James got up and tried to make his way to the aisle, but it was Serena who saved the day. She shoved the microphone at the minister and ran down the aisle in sobs, swooning just as she crossed paths with Greg.

One good leg and a cane were not enough to support Serena's weight in full swoon mode—and she would not let go of Greg, so despite his best efforts he was unable to just dump her on the floor either—and they both went down in a sobbing heap.

If Greg said anything at all it was drowned out by Serena's wailing. "Why, God, why? Why? Why Bonnie? You should have taken _me_ instead!"

Joey, James, and a large woman in a multicolored pom-pom polka-dot sweater together managed to assist Greg and Serena out to the foyer where Serena's hysterics ceased immediately.

Serena patted the polka-dotted woman on the shoulder and said, "We should probably get the sandwiches set up now."

They walked off leaving Greg clutching his bad leg, wide-eyed. "What the hell?"

"Why are you here?"

"What the hell was that?" Greg repeated.

"That," James said, "was Serena. Take your own advice and don't argue with her."

" _Serena?_ " he repeated. " _Serene_ -ah? There is nothing serene about—"

"House, why are you here? You didn't even know Bonnie."

"I came to be supportive."

"And you don't even like Keith."

"I like Keith fine," he said, brushing off his pants. "Sara's the one who doesn't like Keith. And I came to be supportive of _you_. Cuddy told me he dumped you for his old flame just before the funeral."

There was no point in explaining that _he'd_ been the one who'd initiated contact with Kenny and told him about Bonnie's illness so that he could be there at the end. It would just make James sound like a bigger sap than he was. The truth wasn't quite so selfless at all. He had never been good at breaking up with people and he couldn't think of a delicate way of ending his relationship with Keith. This was not only easier, it really seemed to be working out for the best all around.

The funeral procession was on foot. The grave was a fair hike from the church in the new section of the cemetery near the golf course. James had tried to discourage Greg from attending the burial as the walk was long and the ground would make the cane tricky. Greg just hitched a ride with the orderlies in the "hearse" (a black van with dark purple fabric draped from the luggage rack).

James read gravestones along the walk, each a miniature story—or a lack of a story. For every stone memorializing a beloved father and uncle and brother and cousin and friend, there was another that just said "JOHNSON" or "SMITH". He'd always wondered how you could bury someone with nothing on their stone but a name. It almost seemed a polite way of saying, "We have nothing nice to say and we're kind of glad he's dead now." He could imagine a stone that just said "HOUSE" but the image shifted in his mind and he knew that if Greg died first, his gravestone would read "Gregory House, doctor, friend" and then he realized with a start that it would be _his_ gravestone that would just say "WILSON" because no one would bother with anything else. A hundred years from now someone else would be staring down at his grave and wondering if he were a bank robber or a drunk that no one cared enough to put more than "WILSON" on his headstone.

There were stray golf balls among the headstones now. He saw Kenny pick one up absently and put it in his pocket. A moment later, he found one himself half hidden against the grave of a man who died in 1992 with the words "PARTY _ON!_ " etched forever below his name.

The graveside service was brief since it followed a full church funeral. The minister stepped up the God talk a notch as the cemetery workers lowered the casket. Serena screamed as a golf ball whizzed past, dented the wooden casket, and bounced into the grave. Keith burst out laughing.

"Sorry!" a voice called out from the golf course. "Um, if I could just, um?"

"One stroke penalty and play it from where it went out of bounds!" Greg called back. "Unless, of course, you'd like to come over here and play it where it lies."

Keith continued to giggle and the rest of them relaxed. Bonnie would have thought this was funny too.

"It's just that it was monogrammed," the golfer said.

Was the idiot actually asking someone to crawl into the grave to get his monogrammed golf ball back? James turned to look at him in disbelief, disbelief that was instantly magnified. "Philip Anderson, you ass!"

"Oh." Dr. Philip Anderson backed away from the mourners. "One stroke penalty, right."

"You said you couldn't go to the funeral because you had surgery scheduled today!" James spluttered helplessly as Dr. Anderson pulled another golf ball out if his pocket and lined up his shot. He turned to Greg and growled, "Doctors are all horrible people! Horrible, horrible people!"

"Yes. Yes, they are. In other news, Earth orbits the sun."

The minister couldn't seem to remember where he'd left off and Serena shouted, "Sing something Irish and then let's all go get drunk!"

Greg and Kenny did an impromptu duet that literally brought a tear to the eye and when it was all over, everyone walked back to the church for coffee and sandwiches.

They later continued on to a bar. Keith and his Aunt Mary and the cousins and Kenny and the gang from the office and even a significant number of the aging church ladies all seemed keen on continuing to salute Bonnie's memory with a glass of something. In migrating to the bar they only lost a handful of the more elderly church ladies and the minister and of course James who had taken it as an opportunity to slip away.

He went back to his apartment and curled up on the couch with Sara and tried to decide what was wrong with him. Keith was perfect. Attractive and intelligent and funny and considerate. And James had put genuine effort into pushing him away. Why? He fell asleep still wondering.

He woke up with a start. Sara ran for cover. The thumping on the door sounded dead. In his muzzy state, James had a panicked vision of a zombie trying to break in. It wasn't the rap of human knuckles knocking. It was the dead thump of a lifeless meat hand.

When he didn't answer the door quickly enough the zombie let himself in with his own key. Of course, Greg had made himself an extra key. He shouldn't have been surprised. Greg swayed and lurched as he staggered into the room. James barely had time to sit up before Greg collapsed onto the couch where his legs had just been. Greg hadn't bothered to shut the door, so James got up and closed it before Sara could get out.

Greg reeked of alcohol and sweat and a hint of hairspray and perfume and urine. There was a dark stain on the left side of his shirt where something had spilled and it looked as if it was still damp. He had lipstick stains on the front of his untucked shirttails.

"You need a shower."

"I've decided I'm okay with the whole gay thing," Greg announced.

"I never actually needed your permission, you know." James sighed. "And it's over now anyway."

"And Rabbi Feinman says that circumcision is part of the covenant with God symbolizing the Hebrews submission to Yahweh's will. It has nothing to do with Kosher dietary laws, which aren't really an issue anyway since you never get squeamish about pork fried rice."

"What?"

"It's all good." Greg gave him a thumbs up as his head flopped onto the back of the couch.

"What's all good?"

"Gay is good," Greg said. "I am totally okay with gay. Gay, in fact, has moments of awesome."

James rethought the lipstick on Greg's shirttails. "So, you and Serena hit it off then?"

Greg shrugged. "She's a little high maintenance for my taste."

James snorted at that.

"Dilbert seems nice enough though," Greg added.

"His name is actually Darren."

"We weren't," Greg said and stared at the ceiling for a moment before continuing, "formally introduced."

James couldn't think of a thing to say about that and went to the kitchen to get Greg some water. He handed the glass to Greg and ordered him to drink. "You'll thank me in the morning."

Greg took a gulp and started talking again. "My point is that now we're even and I forgive you."

"You forgive me?"

"Yup. Water under the bridge." Water sloshed out of his glass as he gestured and he stared at it as if he didn't remember where it had come from. "Completely forgotten."

"I'm sorry, but what exactly did I do that you feel needed your forgiveness?"

"I don't remember," Greg said tapping his forehead. "I've already forgotten. See how good I am at this?"

"Oh, you have always been a champion at selective memory."

"So, can we fuck now?"

"No."

Greg frowned. "Why not?"

James rolled his eyes. "Because you're disgusting and need a shower. Because you've been with someone else within the last few hours, which I find distasteful. Because you're dead drunk, which doesn't fit my definition of consensual. And also, _you're dead drunk_ so I doubt you could follow through even if I said yes."

"No, no. That's your problem, not mine. I am a _total slut_ when I'm drunk. Bring it on, baby."

"You're still disgusting."

"Derwood says I'm cute."

"You're cute _and_ you're disgusting. It's a special gift you have. I'm sorry. I am not even having this conversation with you while you're drunk. If you still want to talk about this when you are sober and showered, we can talk then."

"And then we'll fuck?" Greg asked.

James sighed. There were certain forces like gravity and electromagnetism that led to inevitable outcomes. It was pointless to pretend. "Yeah, probably."

"Cool." Greg slipped sideways on the couch and belched.

"You puke on my couch, you are buying me a new one."

Greg gave him another thumbs up just before he passed out.


End file.
